Albums & Compilations

Well, two things are quite noticeable in the run-up of this article:
First, we´re very happy to be able to welcome back one of our "long lost children", namely our editor "killaswitch", who should be pretty well-known to everyone who´s been with us any longer than two years. Second, he took the chance to make his debut with one of the rare releases that come from the african continent, called "African Rebel Music - Roots and Dancehall" and shows a good profile of contemporary african reggae music.

I guess the man himself needs no further introduction when we announce the latest release by Maguari Productions from Veteran Singer Echo Minott. More interesting may be the fact that "Roots of Dancehall - Anthology 1982-2005" is the first CD ever released by himself in cooperation with the aforementioned french based label.

The in the GSA well-known duo Mono & Nikitaman coming from Austria and Germany are currently about to release their second album on the Rootdown Music label accompanied by a record release tour covering the whole GSA area. With over 350 gigs in the past and still more coming up, they´re known as a reggae combo with a huge stage experience delivering powerful shows and a huge crowd eagerly expecting their new 16 track studio release named "Für Immer". Read on for more details..

From the Minor7Flat5 label from spain, who already presented very attractive albums like the recent Anthony B. and Josie Mel releases, comes another hot release - "The Good, The Bad & The Blazin" a concept album for a virtual movie ft. Junior Kelly as "The Good", Bounty as "The Bad" and Capleton as "The Blazing" with 12 exclusive tracks completely reworked or re-recorded.

Read on for review and tracklists.

"The Scrucialists" the backup-band for swiss singjay Phenomden is probably nearly as famous in switzerland as germanys probabably most often-booked backing band, the "Far East Band". In contradiction to Far East, The Scrucialists are now about to present their first own album featuring a lot of well-known jamaican but also not so well-known german and swiss artists.

Read on for review and tracklists.

Again from the Rootdown Music camp comes Maxim with his own longplayer, now for nearly 3 years making a name in the german reggae scene. He is a younger singer with a lot of talent, already with some fame and live-presence due to touring with his label-mate - the german singjay Nosliw.

Phenomden out of Switzerland surprises with a strong debut release: "Fang Ah", which is distributed in Germany via Rootdown Records. The big surprise is the fact that "schwyzerdeutsch" (swiss german) seems to be just as qualified for doing good reggaemusic as german or french are nowadays, apart from the original patois sound out of jamaica.

Finally, Nattyflo comes up with his first longplayer titled "Immer Vorwärts" on Rootdown Music. "Finally", because his Solo-album has been "in the making" for quite some time now: He is considered one of the first artists to do reggae and dancehall with german lyrics, and also one of the first members of the now international 'RIDDIM'-Magazine.

Not really the latest news, but Rootdown Records from Germany recently sent some great promotion copies from international artists that needed a review badly. Amongst them are the highly anticipated new Anthony B. Album "My hope", the controversial and much discussed Apache Indian Album "Time for Change" and Spectacular´s debut album "Find yourself".
Please read on for detailed info and tracklists.

Recently, more and more promo copies come up even from the larger distributors and labels like VP records. So we had the chance to review the latest masterpieces of Capleton "Reign of Fire", Marcia Griffith "Shining Time" and Beres Hammond´s "Love has no Boundaries". Read on for reviews and snippets as usual..

We were quite surprised by the amazing quality of recent independant releases namely Earl "Chinna" Smith(JA) with "Inna de Yard", M.D.V.(UK) with "Style One" and a representative from Sweden with Urban Tribe´s "Bob´s Bar". And yes we also had a selfproduced german release by Radikal Sunflowers Colectivo from Germany but mainly in spanish language that´s a bit off the usual reggae or dancehall league. Please read on for reviews and snippets..

Its Rootz its dancehall and its Ragga. It is Zuluman's new release "No Bad Card".

Due to a good load of promotion copies we received this month from Roughtrade Records, we´re a bit late with this section, but nevertheless we took a deeper look onto Mad Cobra´s eargerly awaited album "Words of Warning", Gregory Isaacs´s "Give it all up", Capleton´s latest masterpiece "The people dem" and a german compilation that goes into the fourth round now - "Dancehall Fieber 4". Check article for more info, related links and snippets..

As we had a large amount of incoming promotion material to review this month, we do not feel able to post a single article for each short review any more. Deeper reviews will still appear as an own article, shortreviews will be sorted after label/distributor and month.
So for this month we got two nice releases in the "Independant" Category, namely The Solution with their second album "Lovely Life" and something that didn´t really fit into our concept on first sight but prove as a great release: Audrey Gordon with her strongly spiritual influenced Gospel/Reggae album "...Still Waiting". Read on for more info on the releases and snippets.

When Solo-projects Stereotyp and Al Haca Soundsystem get together as a common project, it is a guarantee for surprising Reggae experiments with influences from HipHop to Dub. Interesting as it is, this release from Austria on Klein Records is not the usual reggae you´d probably expect, but also find supporters from other music genres.

Munich based and latin-america derived brothers Caramelo & Criminal release their Double-A-Side "Politicos/La Mina" as a teaser for the upcoming album "Caramelo Criminal". Just as the 7", their complete album will be in spanish language and is completely produced by Hamburg based Producers & Soundsystem Silly Walks Team who are probably already well-known through their productions with german reggae superstar Gentleman.

Exactly five years after his first release and a whole load of features, samplers and even an own EP Nosliw finally released his first own 16-track album "Mittendrin" on his label Rootdown Records. The album got postponed twice during this summer, but finally we had the chance to lend it an ear.

Germany based Singjay Gentleman has already proven that white Reggae Artistes can be successful and still be credible even on Jamaica. We now had the chance to listen to the latest release from Mountain Paradise Ltd. Records with Dylan Judah´s self-named debut longplayer. After two releases with his band, the Cannons, this is the follow up to the latest " Musicians Atlas Independent Music Awards (Reggae Division)" awarded release. Teaming up with famous Dub engineer Hopeton "Scientist" Brown both artistes built a solid release that is indeed worth listening!

With the Bob Marley and The Wailers - Legend (Sound+Vision) 2 CD/DVD Combo Set UMe has released the ultimate highlight for the reggae enthusiasts' collection. The CD set which was released on July 13, 2004, and features tracks such as "No Woman, No Cry", "Buffalo Soldier", "I Shot The Sheriff" and "Jammin goes along with a DVD featuring videos for "Buffalo Soldier, "Get Up Stand Up" and many others.
Read on for more info and snippets of the audio and video..

Finally the highly anticipated 5th album of far too often underrated Roots-Reggae Star Prezident Brown hit the stores and the Prez continues to drop more "Words of Encouragement"!
Phanthomas lent it an ear and was quite surprised of some combinations he did with Jamaican Stars as well as German Reggae Musicians like Xavier Naidoo, Gentleman and even more or less HipHop-oriented Producer DJ Tomekk..

Rootdown Records belong to those labels which pushed native-tongue-reggae in Germany to serious heights. After people like Gentleman and Tolga made patois-lyrics reggae fashionable, Rootdown artists like Nattflo and Nosliw proved that the same thing could be possible with German lyrics. After two 7" riddim selections and various EP's, the time was ripe for a compliation, and here it goes. Rootdown Allstars #1 comes along with the most successful Rootdown tunes, spiced up with some previously unreleased material as well.

The whole south of Germany represents on this conscious compilation with such names as Headcornerstone, Babacools, Raggabund and a whole row of other artists. Again, Killaswitch took a closer look into it..

Reggae aus Dormund?

Wer davon bisher noch nie etwas gehört haben sollte, sollte sich so wie wir doch mal die neue LP vom "Soundforschungslabor" näher anhören und sich am besten ein eigenes Urteil bilden..

The Cologne-based german Singjay "Gentleman" comes up with a new EP featuring new songs and featuring exclusive Multimedia-Addons. We took a closer look..

A German EP, featuring hiphop, dancehall and drum'n'bass tunes. Check the German review...